Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-11-15

No more ur ique, distir Give, and at the
same time popular character stands before
the people to-day than Ella Wheeler
Wilcox.
Born in Wisconsin village some thirty
odd years ago, when Wisconsin was not
much more than a frontier state, without
Influential friends or family, and without
money, she made for herself name il
literature which commanded attention
before she was eighteen years old. To
one who knows it in detail her history
reads like fairy story. Reared on &
western prairie, she is an ornament to
the most brilliant circles OF the metrop-
oils
She tad never seen en- editor or literary
person and knew nothing Of the methods
CT getting into print when, at fourteen,
she read her first production to the press
TIE New York Mercury published these
childish efforts which were written IN
prose snd under nom-de-plumes.
II declined the first poem she ever sent
for publication, and the editor sarcastic
ally advised her to "crQsh her ambitions
to be poet"
The Woverly Magazine has the honor
20 be the first TO present the name Of Ella
Wheeler to the public.
Frank Leslie sent her the first check
she ever received st seventeen years OF
age,
From that time to the present day she
has nsver swerved nor fsltered IN the
steady, hard climb toWsrd success.
She ever sent manuscript IN her life
for criticism and never asked for aid or
influence in her literary ventures.
During the last fifteen years Ellie
Wheeler has probably been the most crit
icised, abused, praised, misconstrued and
admired woman in the literary world.
Without particle of effort to cleate q
sensation, everything she has in that
time written has had the effect of stirriDg
up criticism.
Her writings seem to be possessed of a
certain something combusti0le in their
composition, that on striking outer air
invariably rends il with more or less of
an explosion.
Her first published book was "Drops OF
Wster," 8 collection of juvenile temper
ance verses. These were crude but filed
with the dramatic enthusiasm which has go
permeated her later work, and provoked
praise and censure in proportionate quan-
titles from the contending forces on the
liquor question.
"Shells," little volume now out of
print, comes next.
"Maurinne," by many considered her
finest work, and the famous Poems of
Passion which set the literary world on
fire, followed within three years Of each
other. \
Columns Of abuse and praise items rid
iculing and eulogizing the latter volume
filed all the papers in the country.
Some of her friends urged her to sup
press the book after its first appearance,
but strong in The courage Of her convic-
tons, she read the severe and unjust re-
views through tears, not unmixed with
smiles at sight of the golden coins which
punctua.e ed the comments of the critics.
Many of these dollars were spent In
building home for aging parents, and
much of the halo now surrounding this
remarkable woman's life Is the reflection
of the generous deeds Of her early monied
life.
Milwaukee people gave her "berefit"
in Mav,1 1883, when she was made the sub
ject of a speech by United States Sena-
tor and was presented with chins basket
containing $500 in geld.
Long before her happy marriage In May,
1884, with the elegant and cultivated gen.
tleman Who brought her to the east, her
name was household word and she was
q welcome guest in the hes. circles of the
great northeast,
To her rare genius were added unusual
graces of person. She was q brilliant
and tactful talker, good dancer, and q